Accountability and Personal Integrity

I never saw this one coming and am still trying to process it from my heart to my hard head. This may take some time! For weeks I had been looking forward to Pride weekend. My daughter, my grandson Tristan, her boyfriend, Myralee and I caravanned down to the parade Friday night, Tristan’s first parade of any kind and afterwards we proceeded up to the Belvedere area to see the starting festivities while awaiting my granddaughter and her best friend. It was her boyfriends’ first Pride and he had that “deer in the headlights” look watching all the costumes and wardrobes of the revelers. He is straight and had never seen anything quite like it with the same sex couples openly holding hands, kissing and just enjoying the freedom to be themselves. We all had a fun evening and Myralee and I came home somewhere around 11:00PM. They all came home a little later and set up talking until around 2 in the morning.
The next day Myralee allowed her ex-wife to use her van for the day to go to a seminar that was to last until 5 but in fact lasted until after midnight and I caught the local TARC bus downtown around 10:30 to be onsite to work in our support group booth when Pride opened at noon. In years past I have gone from being a wide-eyed and overwhelmed girl letting go at an LGBT festival for the first time to finally attending one as a responsible young woman with scruples and dignity. That change was 5 years in the making and thank God I survived to see it. Throughout the day I kept being drawn into mini soap operas with people in my life, mainly as a passive observer, at least on the outside, while inside my mind and emotions were working overtime. Seems everywhere I turned there were, at least to me, issues of persons using poor judgmental skills where their personal actions were concerned. My problem was that I was reacting internally to their choices because I just know my actions are always perfect (extreme sarcasm).
We missed church yesterday due in part to being up and down with Myralee trying to arrange for a sister to get home from ER, her car was in our driveway and the keys were with her while Myralee’s van was still with her ex-wife who was working into the wee hours at her own function. I was livid at the entire scenario from Myralee being put in the middle of the entire mess , all the presumptions by others and I was really bothered by my lack of “quality time” with my wife. I was jealous of the others infringing on my time with her and yes I know it sounds petty and self-centered and I agree but that is what I flet and hiding it would only add to my own problems.
Honestly when I started writing this my intent was to get on a soap box and preach of how we all need personal accountability for our actions and how personal integrity is what you do when no one else can see you and I believe both are very valid but then Daddy stepped in and showed me the heart of the problem, well at least my problem. So here is the new perspective and I believe it is His perspective of this thing I call “my life”.
Every Pride parade there is a conservative christian dude with a mic and amp preaching at the main entrance to the Festival grounds and each year it angers me at his audacity and judgmental attitudes to a point where I want to confront him which is stupidity on my part but emotions are messy things. I was awakened this morning to my wife making final preparations to go for some medical testing her doctor had ordered and I just laid there in bed thinking how blessed I was to have her in my life. After she left I got up and made coffee and just relaxed and started coming to life. All the emotions of the weekend started flooding my mind afresh when suddenly I was questioned by a still small voice asking simply “What is my heart in all these things?” and my gears locked up and I redirected my spiritual ears to hear His voice instead of my own chaos.
I came to a realization, for the umpteenth time, that He was much more concerned with my character and personal growth than He was with my comfort and all I could say was “Yes Daddy”. He started asking me what His heart was to all the people who were striving with us over our own beliefs and life choices and the answers came slowly though I have the pat answers readily available they really started feeling phony and shallow. He asked me about His heart towards those who I felt had used me and taken advantage over me because I have a compassionate heart and I guess that makes me a soft touch at times. Reality check- I have always known that all I have here is His and I have tried to steward it and invest wisely in others I felt were good soil and in so doing I have gotten to a place of tightness and minimal savings left. Daddy asked me why I had gotten such a selfish and critical spirit recently towards those people I was feeling had used me instead of fending for themselves. Seems the question is going back to “Whose finances and possessions are these” If they are mine then I am in trouble but if they are truly His then His supply is in-exhaustible and why am I fretting.?”. I found myself standing in need of repentance and prayer. He asked what His heart was towards these people He had sent my way for comfort and safety and I was ashamed of how my Heart aligned nest to His.
Well I went out to the back porch for a cup of coffee and to lick my wounds but it is impossible to flee from the voice of God when He is speaking to your heart, I know because I have tried many times to do it and always failed. Maybe that is what is meant by “His pursuing love”, I know I could never outrun or out-hide it. I was reminded of the Scripture where Jesus said” take My yoke upon you” and memories of a long ago teaching came back to life. When a farmer has a new ox or mule he wants to train he puts the new one in a yoke with a more trained and matured one. They are yoked together in order to train the younger how to walk, the pace and gait, how to respond to the farmer’s directions whether vocally or with his reins. He is taught how to work in tandem with his yoke mate in a way that is both productive and with minimum discomfort from the wieight of the yoke. He learns not to drag behind or rush ahead but rather to be attentive to the farmer and his yoke mate. The yoke isn’t a burden but rather a help in that he doesn’t carry the whole weight of it but only his own portion and as long as he walks in obedience to the farmer’s directions all will be well. Scripture warns of being unequally yoked to a non-believer and I am seeing that admonition in a whole new light. You can only be yoked to one person at a time and who you choose to be joined to affects your direction and outcome a great deal. Am I truly yoked to Jesus? Am I yoked to man’s understanding and beliefs of who Jesus is or am I yoked to the world and all it’s temptations and distractions? The answer to that question is a huge determining factor in the kind of life I will lead. In the military you are taught to surrender your personal will to the whole so the group can act as one and not a bunch of Lone Rangers doing there own thing. Daddy is asking whose heart will I follow, my very imperfect and emotional one or His which is pure, compassionate and full of mercy. Understand that His heart is turned towards ALL his children and all creation. He does not have one heart towards the conservative Christians that we revile and then another heart towards the LGBT community. If we are be true reflections of His heart that is a 24/7/365 days a year reflection or it will be just another mockery that drives His sons and daughters away instead of drawing them into His arms. We need to have a divine “paradigm shift” in our own hearts and spirits to do that and only He can make it come to pass in each of our lives. Please understand I am writing this down as a personal challenge to myself and not judging others, you each need to examine your own heart and decide.
Back to the title of this post. I have made a commitment to my pastor to be accountable to her and give her free reign to address things in my life as the Holy Spirit reveals them to her and directs her. I shared that openly and proudly with numerous people this past weekend. She has agreed to be my spiritual covering and a safe haven for me. Accountability is a very personal choice and a responsibility. She doesn’t live in my home, she doesn’t see my checkbook, doesn’t see my mood swing and those days I am out of sorts and just plain mean. If I am not transparent and real before her then apart from divine revelation she will see only as much as I will allow her and choose to show her. Say hello to “Personal Integrity” it can be your closest friend or your worst enemy and the choice is your alone. It is a guidepost for or life and a gauge of or honesty or lack of it. Daddy will not force us to walk transparent in this world but it is His desire for us and a large part of fulfilling our personal callings and destinies He has for each of us. It brings us to a place of true humility in our lives and contrasy to the worlds’ belief it is a strength and not s weakness. Isaiah 6 records Isaiah’s vision of God’s seated in majesty on His throne and His response was “Woe unto me for I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips”. Maybe today’s translation “ I am a man with a divided heart among a people of divided hearts”. Daddy sent an angel to Isaiah with a coal of fire to touch Isaiah’s lips and to purify him. Maybe it is time to seek Daddy with a longing to touch our hearts with that same coal so our hearts may be united to fear, with a holy humility, His holy name and honor Him by a simple and natural obedience to His leadings and stirring.
Lastly, I hope!, as I was finishing dishes He confronted me one more time with one of those questions that require a soul searching answer. “ If I am truly your Provider and Provision then why do you have such a struggle with tithing and giving? I have entrusted you with a portion of my limitless resources not for just you but to allow you to partake in being a vessel of My using to minister to my children at my direction. Your tithe is not a punishment or an infringement upon you but rather an opportunity to be a sower of the seed I provide into the the life of my children in a world of greed and self-preservation. Your giving and sharing are as a floodlight in a dark and troubled world. Your obedience causes you to become that light upon the hill in a cold and dark world which are searching for the Light of my presence and your open humility will draw my hurting and outcast children to Me and not you.
There is a conference here ibn Louisville from July 4-7 and it’s theme is Flawless 2013. You can go to every meeting, every workshop, get lost in worship and prayer but if you don’t have that personal integrity and a real accountability before God this gathering wil be nothing more than a nice vacation from the rest of the world. We know God’s heart for us but it is time to decide to prayerfully and humbly make a choice as to who or what we will be yoked to because like it or not you and I will be yoked to someone or something. I pray the Holy Spirit will meet you in this and the things of God for the reader individually will be burned into your heart and all the parts that are of me will be burned like dead branches in a campfire. Be Blessed and choose wisely, choose Daddy’s heart for you.

Charlena Marie Andrews-HAyes